It is hard for me to believe that they have been sex monsters and the scourge of parents, or that anyone ever thought their music was the devil’s music. Maybe it was the devil’s grandpa’s music. The distance and height we were looking at them, combined with the impression I had from the media about what they must be like, reminded me of that Halloween episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where they’re terrorized by the fear demon, but when they find him, he’s only about one foot tall. Did you see that one? Buffy stepped on him.

I did giggle and exclaim with delight repeatedly during the show, often because they did silly things and also because of the fireworks. Gene Simmons really does spit fire and blood and fly up into the rigging above the stage. I couldn’t remember their character names during the show, so in my head I was calling them Samurai Bat Dragon, Spaceman (I remembered that one), Starchild (remembered!), and Kitty Cat. (It turns out the character names have changed over the years, but the ones I was trying to remember were: The Demon, Starchild, Spaceman, and Catman.)

Although KISS has been a part of the cultural fabric of my life all my life, it turns out that I only know a handful of their songs. And I had to wait until the end of the main set and the beginning of the encore to hear two of them, “Rock and Roll All Night” and “Shout it Out Loud.” Stanley introduced several songs by saying, “You know this one!” And where most of the crowd did, I consistently did not.

Perhaps my favorite moments of the evening, though, were
– When Stanley asked the crowd if they’d picked up the band’s new album, “Sonic Boom.” After allowing the cheers to die down, he told those of us who hadn’t gotten a copy yet to head down to Wal Mart to pick one up.
– When he introduced a song by saying (in major rock-n-roll form): “This song………. is about……….ALCOHOL!!!! Are you drinking tonight? Are you having a drink tonight??? If you’re drinking tonight…. DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE! You could hurt yourself. You could hurt someone else.” It was a rock-n-roll PSA.

In conclusion, I am so glad I went. And I am probably not going to be recruited into the KISS Army.

{mov}485{/mov}